


Monsters

by argle_fraster



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Graphic Description, M/M, Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 15:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was not meant to become this thing, this twisted, awful thing; he was never meant to see the things she did. And in the end, maybe they are all monsters, in their own right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sev Dragomire (seventhe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/gifts).



> I was replaying FFIV and found myself absolutely horrified all over again at what happens to Edge's parents by Lugae, and rather desperately wanted to write something about it. I also wanted to give his mother more agency - FFIV isn't terrible with women in power, but it also isn't great, and this gave me a chance to delve into that a bit more, too, which resulted in a head canon I rather like.
> 
> I ended up going through the Chocobo Down prompt list hoping to find someone else asking for this, and Sev's was the closet prompt that I could tie it in with, so WOOHOO BONUS EDGE/KAIN. Merry early Christmas, haha.
> 
> Written for the prompt: Edge! His past, something introspective, post-game: anything's fine. Interactions with other characters encouraged: I like the Rydia/Edge and Edge/Kain relationships, but I'd be just as happy seeing Edge interact with Cecil and Rosa. Further prompts: memories, ninja traditions, "why are you wearing that?"

She only barely makes it out of the way of the falling debris - the buttresses of the ceiling, once decorated with the proud banners of their clan, are coming down around her head, and she's relying on all her training to keep her feet moving as she weaves her way around them. Instinctively, she finds the path she seeks, feet picking out the pattern as her left arm, aching and pounding with the jack-hammer beat of her own heart, pulses painfully against her stomach.

Around her, there are screams. She hears them, and cannot shut them out, despite the zen she tries to pull onto herself, the calm she seeks to find amidst the death. She reaches out with her mind - anything she can latch onto, she will. She finds only a thin breeze moving its way through the castle, the broken walls and shattered pillars, but it's enough. She can feel the pulse and ebb of the wind, and that is something she can cleave to.

She is so caught up in moving, in keeping her hand pressed against the gash to her stomach - hands slick with blood, red like fire, red like the stained clay earth - that she nearly trips over a body lying across the path.

"Your grace," the servant gasps; the colors of her tunic give away her clan and rank. There's stone lying over her and her right leg is broken, snapped halfway down the calf and twisted, useless, beneath the wreckage. Still, the serving girl is reaching out with hands half-crushed by the weight of the rocks. "Your grace."

If she stops, she will bleed out. There is no time - she doesn't know where her husband is, nor her son. The palm pressed against her gut is beginning to slide, and she doesn't know how much longer she will last. She is afraid that removing her hand will show the true extent of her injuries - already, a gut wound, she will die, but she will go faster should she lose her vital organs as she attempts to leave.

She has to find Edge.

She leans down, the most she can afford to the girl, and presses the hand not slicked with her own blood against the girl's forehead. "Find peace," she whispers, and she feels fire at her heels, licking against the bottom of her boots. It is not hard to find the knot of bone and the cluster of nerves at the back of the servant's neck, but it is hard to wrap her hands around it and snap - she knows it to be mercy, better than burning alive in the approaching flames, but still, it is hard.

When she gets to the end of the hall, the long corridor that was once lit with the candles of victories won, she finds that her exit has been sealed by a crumbled support wall, and she cannot get through. With her good hand, she presses her fingers against the stones, and tries to find an opening - enough, that she can use. The fire is behind her, but the wind is still beneath her feet.

She finds a small hole, only just large enough. It is hard to concentrate on the training as her body is screaming in pain, but it gives her focus she didn't have before; she closes her eyes, fingers laying across the torn skin of her belly as she lets herself go and surrenders herself to the smoke and air.

She opens her eyes on the other side of the wall.

"Impressive," says a voice that feels hot against her ears, though it is nowhere near her. She can barely see him through the flames - her castle, her life, her history, and it's all going to be consumed by the fire, nothing more than a meal at the mercy of its insatiable hunger. "You show a great deal of skill."

"And you shall be damned to hell for this," she spits. Her stomach throbs; she doesn't have long. She's losing too much blood, and still, she is not free from the confines of the burning castle.

He chuckles, low and deep. "My lady queen, you know nothing of hell."

Her breath catches in her throat - she wishes she'd been able to find Edge. As her knees hit the ground, she feels only the sweet tang of death, her old friend, and wonders if the ninja of old will welcome her when she arrives on the other side.

\--

Edge wakes to darkness.

That, he is used to - he had not seen the sun for months when the citizens of Eblan were hiding within the labyrinth of caves, but here, it feels stifling. The remnants of the memory taste bitter and sour in the back of his mouth. He shifts, only to try and dislodge it from his mind, and his mouth is dry as healer's sling gauze.

The others are still asleep. He can hear the rhythmic cycle of their breathing, overlapping and interweaving together like a soft choir chorus. It doesn't make him feel better - he doesn't really know them.

Sleep will not return to him. He sits up and pulls out his katana, his Ahura, and runs his fingers over the sharp edge of the blade. It doesn't need to be sharpened yet, but he pulls out his rock anyway - at least it will give his hands something to do when he cannot shut off his mind.

There is a shuffle next to him, and all his instincts scream into consciousness again. He is on his feet faster than he thought possible for just waking, sword held out against the man's throat.

The Dragoon, for his part, does not move, hands up in the air, fingers outstretched.

"Sorry," Edge mumbles, though he's not - not really. He waits longer than necessary to take the blade away from Kain's throat. The Dragoon has an acid tongue, and it's been grating to deal with.

"Do you always sleep so armed amongst friends?" Kain asks, running his fingers over his throat, though Edge knows his Ahura didn't leave a mark. He's too good for that.

"You aren't friends," Edge shoots back.

Even in the darkness, he can see the gleam of Kain's teeth as the other man smiles. "How true. At least you realize that, if nothing else."

"If you've woken up just to insult my intelligence, you might as well go back to bed," Edge says. He sits once more, sharpening stone in hand. "Though, if you'd like to continue, I can't say it would grieve me to accidentally lose control of my sword as I'm working."

"Well, losing control seems to be a habit of yours."

Edge barks out a laugh, mirthless, though a bit amused despite his better judgment.

"What a peach you are," he comments.

"Can't sleep?" Kain asks.

Edge drags the stone across his blade loudly, and enjoys the way Kain's expression flinches at the harshness of it. He feels bad, for a moment, about waking the others, but they seem to be dead to the world - after the battles it took to get this far into the sealed cave, he's not surprised. Magical depletion is a strong sleep aid.

"This isn't sharing hour," he says. "Can't you just wander off and die? Plenty of chimera waiting 'round here to eat you as a midnight snack."

"I can see that decorum was never your strong point," Kain snorts, and shifts, knee hitting his discarded armor at the side of his bedroll. "Didn't your parents teach you any manners?"

This time, he doesn't hold his arm back. His Ahura slides against the Dragoon's throat, resting just beneath his Adam's apple and slicing, just a little, the delicate skin there - enough to leave a thin, red line across the flesh. There's a choked sound in response as Edge keeps the sword edge where it is, barely able to keep his hands from trembling in rage.

"You," he hisses, seeing only the roar of the flames that the remnants of the memory left behind, "do not ever speak of my parents."

He's afraid that he'll lose it, the tenuous control, the things he only just has under control at all times, and so he moves his hand and the sword comes free. Kain's eyes are dark with something that Edge isn't sure he wants to understand. Edge sits back down, glaring at the blade as if it can erase everything that's gone wrong in his life, and there is a long moment of silence before the other man speaks again.

"I'm sorry," Kain says. "That was... unforgivable, I suppose."

Edge just rolls his tongue against the inside of his cheek and gets back to work on his sword, sharpening with more force than is necessary.

"For what it's worth," Kain continues, "though I know that isn't much, your parents were stronger than I could ever think to be, at the end."

"That's because you're weak," Edge says, and if his tone warbles, it's only from the exertion of his exercise, and not from the tears welling up and threatening to explode.

\--

She cannot breathe when she comes to once more. There is something crushing her windpipe, pressing down upon her chest; she can't move her arms or legs, and she wonders if this is truly death. For several wild seconds, there is panic building in her form, hot and stinging, and she doesn't have the focus to force it back down.

Her eyes adjust to the darkness. There is a mechanical smell to the air, like oil, like lanterns burning well into the night and heating the iron the flames are kept within. There's something sterile, too, something that reminds her of the infirmary - but mingled with it is a sharp whiff of death, of decomposing and rotting flesh, and it's so strong it makes her eyes tear.

Once she has managed to swallow the fear down, she moves her head. She can barely do it, as if the muscles have atrophied from lack of use - it's an awful, disorienting feeling, not being able to control every ripple and coil of her own body. She finds herself unable to come to terms with the sensation; it goes against all of her training, the core of her being.

After a long while, she gets her head to the side. She is on a cot, or a slab, something to hold her weight up. Across the large opening in the middle of the room, there is a pile of discarded machine parts and metal objects, as if she were somehow inside the underbelly of an airship. There is a man there, standing against the side, and she can hear the clink and snap of his tools, iron against iron.

It is only then that she realizes the reason she cannot feel her limbs - her right arm is gone. In it's place, there is a long tentacle of scaled flesh, sewn into the joint with such lack of care that she can see the stitches binding it to her skin. For a wild, terrible second, she is convinced that she can still feel her own appendage, that she can wiggle her fingers, that she can touch and feel and slide her hands through Edge's tangled hair as he tries to wiggle away.

There's a scream that splits the air and it hurts; it's raw and aching and her own voice, and once she has started, she finds she cannot stop. She is a monster, she is an _abomination_ , and she wants to die. The man working across the lab approaches her with a sharp knife in his hand, arms drenched up to the elbow in crimson.

"I had hoped you would not awaken yet," he says, with only amusement in his voice. "It will make things far worse for you. But perhaps I underestimated the ninja training. Your husband, however, is still asleep."

She does not tell him that she has beaten her husband a hundred times over, because her own skills are superior; she cannot think, and she cannot breathe, and she stares up at him without understanding what is going on. Where she once had fingers, she now has only the dead skin-suit of a fiend.

"If I were you," the doctor tells her, and leans in, "I would fall back into unconsciousness."

All she can do is spit into his face, unable to see the outcome because the tears in her own eyes have blurred her vision beyond all recognition.

"You," the doctor says, mildly, "have made things very difficult for yourself."

And then all there is around her is pain, her world erupting in it, so bright and hot and wrenching that her body begins to seize and coil, trying to reject the reality that is being forced upon her, and she can only continue to scream as his knife cuts through the muscles in her stomach, carving out everything that once made her human.

\--

This time, he wakes in spasms. He barely has time to get himself pushed up from the ground, to stumble across the small cave they've set up camp in, before he's retching against the rocks the meager meal they'd prepared before settling in to sleep. Pressing a hand against his mouth, he closes his eyes shut, and sees only her world of red - pain and misery and anguish so deeply ingrained into his own psyche that he vomits again.

It takes awhile before he can drag himself bag to his bedroll, body still shaking with the aftermath of the vision. It haunts him, in the back of his mind, and he will never be able to unsee it.

There are footsteps to his right, and a leather flask offered. "Here," Kain says. "Drink."

Edge doesn't want the water, but can't find it in himself to reject it. It's cool against his tongue.

"Bad dream?" the man asks.

He's too rattled to lie. "I saw her," Edge mumbles. "My mother. And - and what he did. To her. To _them_."

"Was it real?" Kain asks, and does not sound patronizing; in fact, he sounds as if he believes what Edge says immediately.

"Yes," Edge says. "I've been ... seeing her, in my dreams. Her memories. I think, before she died, she passed them to me."

Kain is silent for a moment. "Magic?"

"The ninjutsu skills are passed down through the mother's line," Edge replies. "Everything we are as a clan comes from the women. I guess there's a ... bond."

Gods, his fingers are still shaking, trembling against his legs. He tries to still them, and finds he can't. Part of him wants to throw up again, as if doing so will expel the things he's been forced to see and live.

As if reading his thoughts, Kain passes him the flask once more. Edge takes a longer swig, swirls the water around his mouth, and spits it out beside him. He feels better after that.

"Did I wake the others?" Edge asks, suddenly unprepared to deal with them knowing as well; it feels so private, too raw to open up yet.

"No. I don't sleep much."

Edge snorts. "Memories of being a _dick_ keep you awake?"

Kain's gaze is very level, fixed on Edge's face, when he says, "Yes."

There's a long stretch of silence between them, uncomfortable and poignant.

"I guess I'm king now," he says, finally.

"I guess so."

Edge runs his tongue over his bottom lip, trying to smooth the dry, torn skin. "Feels weird. Final. Thought I'd be ready when this happened. I used to fantasize about it when I was a kid, to be out from under my mother's rule."

"Things always feel a great deal worse when you're an adult," Kain says.

"What a load of shit," Edge sighs.

Kain laughs a bit, a rumble from somewhere in his chest, and it makes the air seem less tense. Edge tries to uncoil his shoulders, but the muscles are too tightly woven - it will take him hours to loosen them again, and his sword strokes will all be off because of it.

"Did you know your parents?" he asks, suddenly, without knowing why.

One of Kain's fingers digs into the bits of rock and dirt beneath them. "No," he says, and adds, "Not really. I was raised with Cecil, by the King of Baron. He was the closest thing I had to a father. But I became a Dragoon to carry on my real father's legacy."

"Damn," Edge says, and when Kain looks over in question, he shrugs. "I kinda like that. I don't really want to like anything about you."

This time, it's a genuine laugh, and Kain throws a hand over his mouth to try and quiet it. They sit still for a few moments, waiting to see if they have woken the others, but Rosa merely sighs a bit and turns over, her arm across Cecil's waist, and they are safe.

"What did you see?" Kain asks. "In your mother's memories?"

"Monsters," Edge replies, swallowing down bile. "I saw them becoming monsters."

Kain's fingers are suddenly on his arm, strangely warm in the coolness of the sealed cavern. "Hey," he says. "That doesn't make them monsters in the end."

"Stop that," Edge tells him, and wrenches his arm away from the touch. He looks away, wishing he had his mask to hide behind. "I told you I didn't want to like anything about you."

\--

She is everything. She is nothing.

Her legs are gone - cut away by the serrated knife the doctor uses. It's never quick or clean or easy; the operation takes hours, and she feels every sinew being torn, every muscle being ripped apart. In place of her legs, she has the coiled body of a snake, and she can feel it pulsing up through her torso.

There are times that she does not remember, and she thinks that she is losing her mind, too. More and more, she feels the rush of desire to devour, to destroy. It has to come from the fiends she's been mutilated into. She wakes sometimes without knowing what has happened, or what she was doing, but with warm blood on her lips and bits of skin stuck between her teeth.

Her husband is here, too, but he doesn't seem to know her. She prays that his mind is completely gone, so that he won't ever see the monsters they've been made into. He is a large bulk now, mostly ogre; the doctor sewed on the leathery wing of a bat, and it curls grotesquely around the king's lumbering shoulder.

She is just glad that Edge is not here. Wherever he is, she knows he will make a good king.

She wishes for death.

She prays for death.

But there is no god to answer her prayers - not anymore.

\--

He knows he won't be able to keep himself quiet. He runs from the cottage they've set up in the cave, hand pressed hard against his mouth, and once he is far enough away - hoping that the seal holds this far, hopes that it keeps the monsters out, he falls to his knees and tangles his fingers in his hair, trying to pull and tug just to feel enough pain to keep himself from screaming.

He thinks of his mother teaching him his first ninjutsu spell, of her teaching him to weave his consciousness into the elements, to find his focus. She taught him to slip around unnoticed, though he could never manage to sneak up on her. She taught him the way of the sword and the art of the graceful movements, each stroke blending into the next one until it was all just one long dance, blades swinging and clashing.

He cannot think of her as she was at the end, as a monster, as something so foul and vile that it never should have existed - that wasn't his mother. Not anymore.

But he thinks of it anyway, against his own mind, and he doesn't realize he is screaming until there is a body behind his own, arms wrapped around his shoulders and one palm flush against his mouth.

"Quiet," Kain says, against Edge's ear, and Edge hates that he appreciates how the man doesn't offer him false promises, no whispers of how it's going to be fine, or how everything is over. It's just the practical knowledge that Edge's screams will draw the attention of the monsters lurking in the darkness beyond the seal, and maybe they won't be safe within the magical confines.

When Edge thinks that he has gotten himself back under control, he turns his head, dislodging Kain's fingers from his face.

"I'm fine," he lies. "I'm fine, go away."

"No," Kain says, and doesn't let go. Edge is too jarred, too shaken, to get free. He tries anyway, with strength that he just doesn't have left anymore, power that's been stolen by night visions and his mother's terrible, lingering memories; he reaches up and tries to pry Kain's arm away, but he can't summon the strength he needs. He curls his arms around the other man's forearm and sinks his fingernails in, because it's all he can do, and Kain's garbled gasp of pain is more than enough.

That fuels something in him - he isn't sure what. He isn't sure that he wants to look too closely at it, either, so he chooses not to; he's always been good at that. With his heels against the ground, he flips them over, an easy move he's known since he was four, and he's got the advantage when he's straddling Kain's waist. The other man is fighting him, maybe thinking that Edge is going to attack him - and maybe he is.

Kain's hands press against Edge's chest, struggling to right himself, and Edge just leans in, because he can't do this anymore, he can't _deal_ with the things his mother left behind for him, not now, not ever. He leans in and finds Kain's mouth and doesn't even give the other man a choice, because Edge is a prince and he gets what he wants.

Kain goes slack, surprised into absolute stillness. It leaves his lips parted, so Edge delves in without asking.

It catches him off-guard when Kain kisses him back; he'd been expecting the move to throw him off, the surge of strength when the other man found his footing. Instead, Kain grasps Edge by the sides of his head, fingers strong, and rolls them onto their sides as he runs his tongue across and in-between Edge's lips.

And this is better, because it's something else. It's more like a fight and less like he's battling for his life - he doesn't see his mother anymore, because Kain's mouth is hot and he's panting against Edge's own, and whatever noises they are making are getting lost, swallowed down and bottled up in his chest.

"Edge," Kain says, _gasps_ , as he rolls them again and Edge finds himself looking up at blonde hair and blue eyes with a rock wedged between his shoulder blades.

"Don't," Edge shoots back. "Don't."

Fortunately, Kain listens. It's okay, it's just _this_ and _them_ and a moment that he won't have to force back down later, when it rises unbidden to his mind.

\--

He was wrong about that - it _does_ come back like hot bile later, when Kain is standing at the mouth of the cave with the Dark Crystal in his hands, staring at them like he doesn't know them at all. Edge thinks of it then, when he's fighting against every instinct he has, and wonders if this is his fate; if everyone he's ever entwined himself with will someday be doomed to become a monster, even a monster wearing the same face.


End file.
